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<title>'A name is like a promise you make' by Lurker2</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25308127">'A name is like a promise you make'</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lurker2/pseuds/Lurker2'>Lurker2</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:49:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>317</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25308127</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lurker2/pseuds/Lurker2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A examination of what 'Doctor' means</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>/r/FanFiction Prompt Challenge #19 / June 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>'A name is like a promise you make'</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>'Doctor.' <br/>For some, it merely means having gotten a doctorate. For others, it means a kind GP, or a surgeon, cutting in body parts to save others, or a psychologist, or -in rare cases-  a marketing trick.</p><p><em>The </em>Doctor is all of that. He is a doctor of everything, he acts like a surgeon (sometimes), killing or having to kill aliens, or monsters, or planets, to save others. Sometimes he uses talking skills and knowledge of their nature to talk them down, and usually he uses his name so people will trust him sooner. </p><p>When he first chose it, did he imagine this?</p><p>His first self is so long ago, he honestly couldn't say. At some point, the name grew in meaning, something to be earned or renounced by him, meaning 'adventure' but also 'fixing things' and 'helping others.'</p><p>
  <em>Never cruel or cowardly...</em>
</p><p>He <em>had</em> sometimes been cruel, and considering he had started this by running away, he couldn't honestly claim he was <em>brave</em>... but some people did, and he refused to disappoint them. So he messed about, and defeated monsters, and tried to ignore the guilt and the deaths and how tired people got from his adventures, how fast they all burned up... </p><p>Most importantly, he kept running, and when people <strike>left him</strike> fell behind, as they inevitably did, he didn't look back, didn't mourn, found a new one and kept going. </p><p>It wasn't callousness.</p><p>It just... if he didn't look back he didn't have to say goodbye, didn't have to face the fact they were gone, for a few seconds more...</p><p>One time he had failed, had gone in time to Victorian London and let go of the human race. And it had cost a life, he reminded himself whenever he felt the urge again.</p><p>If he had believed in a god, or in fate, he'd have thought someone <em>really </em>had it in for him. </p>
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